00:00Hello, this is Chef John from Foodwishes.com with Churrasco Chicken.
00:08That's right, this incredible South American style barbecue is more commonly associated with beef,
00:14but the chicken version is amazing, and since I was looking for something to pair with a chimichurri potato salad,
00:20I thought this would be the perfect choice, and I think my friends in Brazil, Uruguay, and probably Argentina would definitely agree.
00:27And to get started, the first thing we'll do is put together our marinade, which is going to start with a whole bunch of sliced garlic,
00:34as well as one seeded and sliced hot Fresno chili pepper, and what we'll do is add a nice big spoon of coarse sea salt to those ingredients in a mortar,
00:43and then we'll take the pestle, and we will start bashing, and we will keep bashing until we've formed a coarse paste.
00:51And yes, you can use a blender, but we are always going to extract more flavor this way.
00:55And that's it, once our coarse paste has been produced, we will transfer in a whole bunch of freshly grated lemon zest,
01:02followed by some dried oregano, and then we're also going to want a couple teaspoons of paprika, which can be regular or smoked.
01:11Okay, either will work, since we're going to grill this anyway, and then we'll finish up with a little bit of ground cumin,
01:17at which point we'll give this another bashing and smashing, not to mention a little bit of mashing.
01:23And we'll work that over for about a minute, during which time our lemon oils are going to be mingling with our hot pepper oils and our garlic oils.
01:31And right about here, things should be smelling really, really good.
01:35And that's it, once our mixture is looking a little something like this,
01:38we will finish up with our liquid ingredients, including some freshly squeezed lemon juice,
01:43followed by some red wine vinegar, although I'm pretty sure any vinegar will work here.
01:49And I've used sherry a few times, and that's really nice.
01:52And then last but not least, we'll add some olive oil.
01:55And we'll go ahead and stir slash grind all that together for maybe half a minute, or until the mixture emulsifies.
02:02And that's it, believe it or not, our marinade is done.
02:06And as I grab a freakishly small wooden spoon, to give you a little better look at this,
02:10I should mention this is a pretty awesome sauce, just to use like this, as a condiment,
02:15on pretty much anything that would come off a grill.
02:18But here we're using it as a marinade,
02:19so what we'll do is set that aside while we prep our chicken thighs.
02:23And for this, we're going to use ones that have the skin on and the bone in.
02:27And as usual, we're going to make a couple cuts through the skin,
02:30but this time we're not going down to the bone.
02:33Right here, I want you to make a very shallow cut, barely going through the skin,
02:37since what we're going to do is flip this over and actually remove the bone,
02:41which is way easier than you'd ever imagine.
02:44And once we identify which direction it's going,
02:46we will make a cut right on the bone in the same direction,
02:49and by cutting on top of the bone and on either side of the bone,
02:53it's going to be pretty easy to get to a point where we can slide our finger underneath the bone.
02:57And once we can do that, the rest is easy,
03:00since all we'll do is slide our knife underneath and then cut towards both ends,
03:04and we should be able to remove that bone without losing too much meat.
03:08And in a perfect world, all the cartilage and connective tissue comes with it,
03:12but it usually doesn't.
03:14So once it's deboned, just go ahead and trim off anything that still remains.
03:18Okay, if it's not meat or skin, you can get rid of it.
03:21And I should mention, this is totally optional, and you can leave the bone in,
03:25but trust me, this little bit of prep really does make for a much more luxurious eating experience later.
03:30So we will do that to eight thighs, and then we'll transfer those into a zip-top bag.
03:35And then I know we use some salt when we ground our chilies and our garlic,
03:39but I am going to add a little extra here so we have this properly seasoned.
03:43Right, you know my rule of thumb.
03:44We want about a teaspoon of kosher salt per pound of meat.
03:48And then we'll transfer in our marinade,
03:50at which point we'll use our tongs to give this a very, very thorough mix.
03:55Okay, for some recipes, I'd just let you massage the outside of the bag to mix things around.
04:00But chicken thighs, especially deboned chicken thighs,
04:03have tons of nooks and crannies.
04:06And every one of those nooks and crannies has to have some of this marinade in it.
04:10And once we're very sure that's happened,
04:12we will squeeze out as much air as we can out of the bag,
04:15and we will seal it up,
04:17and then ideally transfer this into the fridge to marinate overnight.
04:20Okay, you can get away with a couple hours if you have to.
04:22And it will still be good.
04:24It just won't be as good.
04:26But anyway, we'll leave that up to you.
04:29I mean, you are after all the Leanne Rimes of your marination times.
04:33And if you're keeping score at home, I went for about 14 hours.
04:37And that's it.
04:37We'll open up the bag and grab some tongs.
04:40And the good news is, we don't have to drain this or wipe it off.
04:43We can put it on the grill just like this.
04:45And when we place that on,
04:47we definitely want to start with the skin side down.
04:49And as usual, I'm going with a very mature charcoal fire.
04:54Just very hot white ashy coals.
04:57And what we'll do is give that first skin side just two minutes before we flip it over.
05:02And of course, there's no way to predict the direction of the wind,
05:04unless you're filming a video where you're going to turn some chicken,
05:08in which case there's 100% chance it's going to be blowing towards the camera.
05:11So after flipping a few, I move to the other side of the grill,
05:15which made for a little clearer shot.
05:18And then once those have all been turned and spaced nice and evenly,
05:22we will let that meat side grill for about five minutes,
05:25before we turn these back over.
05:28And the reason we only give the skin a couple minutes to start
05:30is because that's where most of the fat is,
05:33in the part that's most likely to char.
05:35So we'll do the majority of the cooking on the meat side.
05:37But don't worry, the skin side is going to be beautiful as well,
05:42since after about five minutes, we will flip this back over to the skin side.
05:46And we'll give it another minute, or maybe two minutes,
05:48or as far as we can push it,
05:50to achieve a nice beautiful golden brown finish,
05:53with a few char marks.
05:55And more importantly, our chicken is cooked all the way through.
05:58And if you've watched me grill before, you know I like to play with my food.
06:02And once I have some nice color on both sides,
06:04and I'm getting close to being done,
06:05I will just randomly flip those back and forth,
06:09where and when I think it's needed.
06:11And the great thing about a chicken thigh,
06:13is it's not that easy to dry out,
06:15unlike a breast.
06:17So we can be a little more aggressive,
06:19trying to get a nice brown to finish.
06:21And of course, if some of the smaller pieces finish early,
06:24pull them off.
06:25Since there is no way that all eight of your thighs were the same size.
06:29I mean, my thighs aren't the same size,
06:31and I only have two of them.
06:32And that's it.
06:34Once I had those all removed to a plate,
06:36I headed back inside,
06:38and transferred those onto a serving platter.
06:40And then, because I'm not insane,
06:41I drizzled over the accumulated juices from the plate.
06:44And if that's not some of the most beautiful grilled chicken you've ever seen,
06:48I would love to see whatever you thought looked better.
06:51And I'll serve some up properly in a moment.
06:53But this was just smelling and looking too good not to dig right in.
06:57And that, my friends,
06:58is going to be some of the juiciest,
07:00most flavorful grilled chicken you've ever had.
07:03So I really did love everything about that.
07:05And I went ahead and plated some up properly
07:07on some recently made chimichurri potato salad.
07:10And I squeezed over some fresh lemon,
07:12which is highly recommended,
07:14before digging back in.
07:16And if I ever did a top 10 list
07:18of grilled meats and side dish pairings,
07:21this is 100% on that list.
07:24And what's very cool here
07:26is that chimichurri sauce would be a very popular condiment
07:28to serve alongside this kind of grilled meat.
07:31But here it's already in the potato salad,
07:34which means our side is kind of a hybrid side and sauce,
07:37which I need to invent a word for.
07:40And maybe some of you can help me do that in the comments.
07:43But anyway, the point is it was amazing eaten separately.
07:46But when I combined the two components in one bite,
07:48it was even more magical.
07:51Okay, so I'm not going to tell you how to eat this.
07:53But seriously, this is how you should eat it.
07:56But even if you don't,
07:58and serve it with a different side,
07:59this is a fantastic version of barbecue chicken.
08:02And I really do hope you give it a try soon.
08:06So please follow the links below for the ingredient amounts,
08:09a printable written recipe,
08:10and much more info as usual.
08:12And as always, enjoy.
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